Adelaide found herself transfixed as her eyes roamed over the pieces of art sprawled out in front of her. She wanted to touch the canvases and draw her fingers over the lines of color, feel their texture and absorb everything about them.
It was clear Jean favored blacks and reds and whites. His works were dark and intense and Adelaide couldn't look away from them.
"How do you make such colors?" She whispered, too focused on the paintings to look Jean's way. Her reaction clearly pleased him, because he laughed delightedly and danced around his working station to stand beside her.
"I paint with dry colors," he supplied. "It's called chalk dust."
"Chalk dust," Adelaide repeated mystified.
As she continued strolling through his working chambers it was clear that Jean did a lot more than just portraits for the French court. There were sculptures of varying size and shape, architectural sketches and designs strewn atop multiple surfaces, and paintings depicting landscapes and buildings and people in far less formal settings.
They were all so elegant. Breathtaking.
"How old are you Jean?" Adelaide found herself inquiring. She briefly glanced back at him and found him sorting through a pile of papers seeming to search for something to show her.
"I'm thirty," he said without looking up. Adelaide raised an eyebrow in surprise. So he was a year older than her. She hadn't expected that. His youthful appearance and the excited way he spoke had given her the impression that he was years younger than her. Seeming to have found what he was searching for, Jean stood up with a triumphant cry and practically ran towards her.
He laid out the piece of paper atop more pieces of parchment and looked expectantly at her as Adelaide moved to peer over his shoulder. The drawing was a sketch of medal and it was so elegant that she could only gawk while trying to absorb the detailed line work.
She listened with enraptured fascination as Jean rattled on and on about the medal and what it was going to be for before jumping to another piece of work, this one a theater scenery design, and boisterously proclaiming the beauty of its construction.
Adelaide met Jean's enthusiasm with a degree more of her own each time he unveiled a new component of his art. They fed off one another and before long, Jean was pulling out pigments and grinding them into a fine powder in earthen potters. He talked her ear off as he proceeded to mix in a few additional agents and in a blink Adelaide had chalk dust in her hands. He directed her towards a blank canvas and stood back with an encouraging nod, and she didn't need another word before moving towards it.
Chalk dust was vastly different from working with paints but she was giddy as she did a few tentative strokes. And just like that, Adelaide was enthralled. She found herself consumed as she worked, momentarily forgetting that Jean was behind her the entire time. She wiped at her forehead, pushing her hair out of her eyes before stopping to roll up her sleeves.
Adelaide wasn't even sure what she had crafted when she stepped back from her completed work. Her face was flushed and her heart pounded with an invigorated elation as the feeling of creating something wonderful descended upon her.
How long had it been since she'd felt this way?
How long had it been since she'd painted?
Was it still considered painting when using this chalk dust?
With a shake of her head, Adelaide laughed. She felt Jean move up beside her and his sharp intake of breath had her refocusing and coming back down to earth. As she looked at him, then back at the canvas, she realized she'd painted a strange kaleidoscope of flowers in different stages of bloom all red, black, and white like the colors Jean favored in his portraits. It wasn't the standard for her, but she liked the final product. The newness and difference of it gave her heart a pleasant squeeze.
"This is incredible," Jean breathed in amazement. Adelaide laughed again, the sensation light and enjoyable, making her limbs tingle. Very few people ever looked at her artwork. Henry was usually the only person she ever shared this side of herself with, and it was strange hearing praise from someone who wasn't him.
"I wanted to be a artist when I was younger," Adelaide admitted, feeling suddenly bashful.
"What changed?" Jean asked, stepping closer to the canvas and appreciating it with the same level of fascination that she had shown his art moments ago.
"I found myself involved in something greater than myself."
Adelaide wasn't certain why she was sharing so much with a complete stranger. But, if she was honest, Jean didn't feel like a stranger to her. There was something about him so overtly familiar that it was almost disturbing. Was it the shared passion for art or was Jean just the type of person who could get along with anyone at anytime?
Before the conversation could continue, a knock sounded loudly on the door and Adelaide and Jean turned simultaneously to see Kayden standing in the doorway. He looked around the room curiously before locking eyes with Adelaide and raising an eyebrow.
"They've finished," was all Kayden needed to say before Adelaide was excusing herself from the room.
As much as it hurt to say goodbye to the pieces of artwork, Adelaide needed to see Henry. She felt almost guilty for momentarily forgetting where she was and what was going on around her. Now was not the time to be daydreaming and getting lost in art. As much as Adelaide may have once envisioned a future as an artist, that was not what her present consisted of. She was a solider, Henry's future knight, and she needed to retrain her focus on that fact.